


In Context

by amindamazed (hophophop)



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Seeing Color treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7793797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/amindamazed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"So I guess you two don't have much else in common."</em>
</p><p>A short snippet of Joan and Alfredo conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Context

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flourish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flourish/gifts), [kkool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkool/gifts), [stepquietly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepquietly/gifts).



> when I saw that nobody wrote Elementary this year, I decided to add a little treat to the collection, drawing from 3 of the requests. ETA post-reveal: I actually nominated Elementary, knowing I wasn't eligible to sign up as a participant, with the intent of writing a treat. so thanks to everyone who made use of the nomination and requested it!

Rain followed through on the threat Sherlock had pithily discounted with a dismissive wave of his hand; half an hour after he’d led Alfredo up to the roof, a torrential downpour put movie night on hold. Sherlock fussed with setting up the projector in the Media Room, but after his third offer to help was refused, Alfredo left him muttering about focal length and optimum light levels and went downstairs in search of Joan.

“I don’t know what it is about the video stuff; he’s like that with me, too.” Joan pursed her lips in thought, setting down two glasses of iced tea before sitting across from Alfredo at the kitchen table. “It’s weird the way he’s territorial about that, actually, considering we,” and she waved her hand between herself and Alfredo,” didn’t really get to know each other until he,” and then vertically to loop Sherlock in, “wanted you to teach me security tech. Normally he loves a chance to share what he knows about how things work — as long as he gets to lecture, too.”

Alfredo nodded and chuckled, clearly familiar with Sherlock’s grandstanding mode, and took a sip of his tea with an appreciative hum. Joan continued. “With most of the junk he’s got squirrelled away in here, he wants me to get hands-on, take it apart and put it back together. Usually I’m the one resisting, and he’s frustrated with me ‘willfully choosing to limit my investigative repertoire’ or whatever.” She gestured air quotes as she mimicked him. “I mean, I really don’t care about the relative complexity of Betamax players as compared to VHS, you know? If it’s important for a case, I can look it up. There’s only so much 1980s technology trivia I can take.” She paused in mid-thought. “Huh. I guess it’s only the _new_ video equipment he’s paranoid about. He’s never suggested I check out his latest police scanners, either… I should try that some time.”

“Oh, he’s warned me away from them. Was all for showing off the tweaks he made to get the app to increase the signal strength but flat-out blocked my hand when I dared to reach for a dial. Even though it was based on a technique I’d shown _him_ about getting around a new alarm system.” Alfredo shook his head, remembering. “Think he even used the ‘we’re gonna be late for the meeting’ excuse to get me away from it, and back then he _never_ did that.”

“God, I know. Heaven forbid we should think he needed help with anything.” Joan shook her head with a wry smile; she didn't often reminisce about her first weeks with Sherlock. He'd been so resistant at the start, but with hindsight — and especially after having met Morland — it was much easier to understand why.

They both sat quietly pensive for a moment. Outside, the rain bounced off the cement patio and rattled intermittently against the window panes. “Not letting up,” she observed.

“Hmm,” Alfredo replied absently, staring at his glass as he turned it around and around. He suddenly looked up with a chuckle. “I just remembered, when we were kids, my sister saved up to buy a Betamax player. Well, I was a kid, but she would have been in high school then, working part-time in a department store at the mall. Took her months to have enough, even with her employee discount. VHS was already taking over, but she held onto that thing for a decade, must have had 200 tapes, easy, crammed under her bed.” He shook his head with a smile. “She’d never let me touch it, either.”

“Are you close to your sister? You visited her in Chicago last year, right?”

“Yeah, that’s her. She’s five years older, so we were out of sync for most of my teens, and after that, well… She was there for my mom when I wasn’t. But since I got clean, we reconnected. It’s good.” He nodded. “How about you, any brothers or sisters?”

Joan started to reply as she always had for the first forty-odd years of her life, “a brother,” and was brought up short by the after-thought correction, as bluntly intrusive as Lin herself. “Sherlock never said anything?”

Alfredo frowned, perplexed. “No…?” he drawled. “I think he mentioned one time you were meeting your mother for lunch? There’s the occasional housemate comment and a ton of rehashing your work together on cases, but other than that, he doesn’t talk about you much. Not to me.” Not that Sherlock’s feelings about her weren’t entirely obvious anyway, but Alfredo kept that to himself.

Joan wasn’t sure where to start. It was still something of an emotional jumble for her, what to think about her father, and his illness, and how he somehow managed to have a family without them. There was the anger and hurt and the feeling, irrational or not, that she’d done something wrong, that he didn’t love her enough. There was the bittersweet relief that he hadn’t been cold, hungry, alone on the street all that time. Months later, she still sometimes resented Lin for having had him as her father and felt guilty about that, even as she felt drawn to her and wanted to know her better. And then she was constantly irritated by Lin’s own lingering resentment and occasional acting out. She’d told Emily about Lin and had a few stilted conversations with her mom and Oren. No one else knew, but that was largely because she didn’t have anyone else to tell. Of course Sherlock knew, but neither of them was likely to propose a heart-to-heart about sibling surprises.

There was no reason not to tell Alfredo. There was every reason to tell him, in fact, considering the intensely personal information she knew about him from what he’d shared at meetings back when she accompanied Sherlock several times a week. She’d never really considered it before, the deep imbalance in what they knew about each other, she and Alfredo. She wondered if he had. Of course she’d never spoken at those meetings herself, but given that Sherlock had written to Moriarty about her, and his penchant for blurting in general, she just assumed Alfredo had been told. Things.

She cleared her throat. “Uh, there was just the two of us growing up, me and my brother Oren. He’s three years older, lives near Boston. We get along fine though I probably only talk to him a couple of times a year. But about six months ago I met the half-sister we didn’t know we had.”

Alfredo’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Um, my parents divorced when I was a baby, and my dad was sick. Schizophrenic and institutionalized on and off. He’s been homeless for the last 15 years.” She tilted her head, counting. “More than that, now. Anyway, it turned out that for some of that time he was out of the hospital and on his own, he actually wasn’t. He just had another family and never told us. His other daughter found out and tracked me down last winter.” She shook her head thinking about the ludicrous story Lin had cooked up to explain how she knew about Sherlock. Joan still hadn’t told her what had really happened with Mycroft, despite some not-so-subtle prying on Lin’s part. She hadn’t told anybody. Which was apparently something of a running theme in her life. She sighed. “Her name’s Lin.”

“Wow. Okay, that’s big. That’s really big.”

“I’m starting to get used to it. So’s she.” She trailed her finger through the wet circle left on the table by the water condensing on her glass. “It’s been a little bumpy, but it’s also good to fill in some of the gaps in my father’s life. And it’s interesting, finding out what we have in common. And what we don’t.”

“Is she a whiz at breaking into cars, too?” He grinned a little, cocking an eyebrow.

“Ha — not cars, but she’s a realtor and claims she’s had to pick a few locks on occasion. You should have seen Sherlock’s face, I thought he was going to pull a lab notebook out of thin air to start taking notes.”

“How’s he been with this? Not all science experiment, I hope. I mean, I know you know he does that when he cares too much. You told me that, actually.”

“Did I? Sorry.”

“No, no, I was still figuring out how to be his sponsor. It helped.”

“He’s actually been okay with this. Not intrusive. Or not directly, anyway. If he’s got a file on her somewhere I haven’t seen it.”

“And you don’t want to?”

The investigator in her wanted that file very much. It would be efficient and completely forthcoming, two things Lin was not. But the facts of Lin’s life, her employment history and where she went to school, even the years she had with her father — their father — none of those things were Lin herself. In the end, they wouldn’t really tell her what she wanted to know. She wouldn’t find a sister in there.

“No.”

“So, how are you getting to know her? Or are you?”

“I am. I want to. We’ve been meeting for lunch about once a month. When my brother was in town last month, we all got together. It was kind of like a really weird first date.” Alfredo snorted loudly.

“Sorry. I’ve been on some really weird dates,” he said, rolling his eyes theatrically.

“Do tell!”

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “Maybe next time movie night is rained out. Tonight, I want to hear more about Lin.” A soft rumble of thunder echoed between the buildings behind the Brownstone. Alfredo looked at her kindly and lifted his chin to encourage her to continue. So she did.


End file.
